Today's conditions brought to you by the Bush Junta -
marionettes of their hyperdimensional puppet masters - Produced and
Directed by the CIA, based on an original script by Henry
Kissinger, with a cast of billions.... The "Greatest Shew on
Earth," no doubt, and if you don't have a good sense of humor,
don't read this page! It is designed to reveal the "unseen."
If you can't stand the heat of Objective Reality, get out of the
kitchen!

The
material presented in the linked articles does not necessarily reflect
the views or opinions of the editors. Research on your own and if you
can validate any of the articles, or if you discover deception and/or
an obvious agenda, we will appreciate if you drop us a line! We often
post such comments along with the article synopses for the benefit of
other readers. As always, Caveat Lector!

We
often talk about objectivity and subjectivity on the Signs page,
and the need to have more of the former and less of the latter.
However, the first question to address is why should we even try to
divest ourselves of our false view of the world and our place in
it, what are the benefits of attempting to see the world as it
is?

Most
obviously, if we willingly seek to know the truth in all
situations, we are afforded protection from the pain of reality
ultimately encroaching and forcing us to accept the truth we have
been refusing to see. A classic example is the cuckolded spouse who
believes so fervently that his or her mate is faithful that he or
she is totally blind to the facts. His or her sincerity of belief
(born of a fear of having to confront that reality) means that he
is the last to realise that it is a lie. Cognitive dissonance steps
in to ensure that obvious signs of infidelity are blanked out. Yet,
finally, the truth must be accepted. The level of pain experienced
is often directly related to the depth of his delusion and the
length of time spent believing the lie.

Subjectivity, then, is the
enemy.

A
major factor of subjectivity is the concept of symbolism. Many of
us might be surprised to realise the extent to which our
understanding of our lives, and the things and people in it, is
governed, not by objective observation of their true nature, but by
what they symbolise for us. All too often we assign a meaning to
something or someone that simply does not exist in that thing or
person. A simple object or person can in this way be transformed
into the embodiment of, or the potential for the fulfillment of,
the deepest unconscious desires and longings of another.

It
appears that, as humans, many of us are born into the world with an
inherent, yet unconscious, drive to improve ourselves; to become
more, to achieve something real. This is
essential in order to motivate us to interact with the world, to
live.

However, it appears that
there is more than a touch of desperation about the way in which we
go about the process of living. It is not, it seems, a matter of
take it or leave it. Indeed it can be hard to reconcile the
bustling activity of the world and our lives with the utter
aloneness that we can experience in the quiet moments of our own
thoughts. Far from being happy-go-lucky then, many are driven by an
unconscious desperation to "find something" to fill the
void that sits as a perpetual backdrop to our lives. Yet most of us
are hard pushed to enunciate just what it is that we seek. When
asked, we speak vaguely about "happiness" or "love". Yet what
abiding happiness can there be in this life when we can
expect no more than 70 years of it on average? It seems clear that
when we talk of finding "happiness", we are talking about something
more enduring than the ephemeral nature of physical fulfillment. It
is as if on some level we realise that this world, and being alive
in it, poses more than just a mortal danger to us. In fact one
could say that in the process of life, there is the awareness that
we are fighting for our souls, not simply our physical lives. We
realise that while this life may be a game, the stakes may also be
very high.

It
is with this unconscious understanding and motivation as a backdrop
that we live our lives seeking the elusive "something" that will
fulfill us in a deep and meaningful way. From early childhood,
however, we are taught to seek happiness and love in all the wrong
places, in the world "out there". Often we associate enduring
happiness with the idea of perfection; the belief that if we and
our environment are perfect in every way, that happiness will be
found.

Yet
how can we find or even understand perfection when we seek to
achieve it in the outside world or in the people with whom we share
it?

Despite this, we continue
to attempt to imbue other people or things with the potential to
fulfill us, to save us, a potential which they simply do not
possess. It is unsurprising then that, with this desperation
motivating us, and having been pointed in the wrong
direction,many people give up the
struggle to find happiness within and look to an external savior.
It is not merely to classical saviors such as gods or
"spacebrothers" that we look, but also to other people that share
our lives. We believe that if we can create -- usually by
manipulation, and usually unconsciously -- that which we most
desire and need and which is lacking in ourselves within another,
that we will somehow save ourselves; we will have found that which
we have been seeking. In doing so, not only are we dooming
ourselves to failure, but we are determining the needs of another,
robbing them of the right to choose for themselves. This is equally
true when another is apparently willing to be saved. It is merely
the case that they, too, are seeking to find happiness, and they,
too, are only too willing to let us tell them where and how it is
to be achieved: a perfectly symbiotic relationship that assures a
mutual and endless search.

The
truth is that we are selfish beings by nature, despite our
apparently "helpful" motivations. Our desire to save, fix or rescue
another is motivated at a fundamental level by our own fear and
desire to save ourselves. In this way we come to assign the
potential for true and lasting fulfillment to something other than
ourselves. We turn the other into the symbol of our own salvation,
measuring our own forward march by their growing conformity to our
vision of who they need to be to set us free.

This
naturally can only lead to unhappiness and unfulfillment for all
concerned.

Which takes us back to the
need for objectivity and the protection it can afford us from
needless pain in our quest to find a way to fulfill our possible
potential: to become more (or to become truly ourselves), to be.
Let us not prove true the assessment of Henry David Thoreau when he
said:

"Most men lead lives of
quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in
them."

Desperation can become the
raw material of drastic change if it is viewed consciously and
objectively. Only those who can leave behind everything they have
ever believed in can hope to escape.

Summary:This article, appearing in the French journal,
Voltaire, publication of the Réseau Voltaire,
has a interesting take on the current furour in France over the
Islamic veil. Voltaire suggests that the debate is the creation of
French Interior Minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, whose purpose is the
destabilization of French President Jacques Chirac. Sarkozy wants
Chirac's job. It seems he wants more than that.

The argument is developed as follows
(this is a paraphrasing of the article):

Debate about the Islamic veil must start with a definition of
secularism, a term everyone is using to stigmatize their
adversaries.

Secularism is a mode of social organization where the Law is
the fruit of reasoned debate where individual convictions are
excluded. This system guarantees to each the freedom of conscience
(which includes the right to apostasy and blasphemy) and social
peace.

By
twisting the meaning, it is being used to impose identical
obligations on all students.

In
order to understand the political function of the current debate,
we must analyze its genesis and the role played by a highly media
savvy politician.

On
April 19, 2003, Sarkozy deliberately relaunched a highly polemical
debate on the veil when he spoke to the annual meeting of the Union
of Moslem Organizations of France (UOIF). This debate, which was
apparent during the 80's, had fallen silent, as the graph supplied
with the article demonstrated.

In
order to manufacture a quarrel, Sarkozy appeared at the meeting. He
offered his congratulations on the founding of the Union in a
paternalistic way. No one was surprised at this interference by the
State in the religious domain. The Minister spoke about the
regulations for photos for the national identify cards, insisting
that in no case would anyone be permitted to wear the veil for
these photos. There was no reason to discuss this question; there
had been no reports of problems or administrative litigations on
this topic. Part of the audience reacted in front of the TV cameras
unfavourably to this remark, TV cameras that had been brought along
precisely to capture this reaction. The debate began in the media,
and for those who only had their information from this short
televised extract, it appeared that it was begun by the Moslems
against a member of the government who had come as a
"friend."

This
initiative by Sarkozy came one month after France threatened to
veto the US at the UN Security Council. The article says that it
can be interpreted as a desire to import to France the US strategy
of the "clash of civilizations." The Interior Minister thus killed
two birds with one stone: as a confirmed Atlanticist (that is, a
Frenchman who believes in strong ties with the US), he was putting
into question the Mid-East politics of France; as a permanent rival
of Jacques Chirac, who had already been accused by the US of
anti-Semitism, Sarkozy is harassing Chirac on a new religious
question, trying to force Chirac to take some distance from the
Moslems.

Within the President's political party, the UMP, the president
of the National Assembly, Jean-Louis Debre, began a commission to
collect information on the wearing of religious insignia at school.
In order to extricate himself from this commission, Chirac put in
place an independent commission.

But
rather than looking at the philosophical and political questions,
the commission came up with a managerial approach well-known in the
public service. Rather than defining consensual principals, they
issued a series of regulations that opened a multitude of polemics
on implementation.

The
debate artificially provoked by Sarkozy raises issues that go
beyond the question of the veil, and is being used by some as a
convenient pretext to symbolically exclude French Moslems from the
public sphere. The theologian Tariq Ramadan, who has been warning
his coreligionists against the reflex of turning into themselves
and who is inciting them to become politically engaged, has thus
become the target of the Atlanticists. He was accused of
anti-Semitism before being held responsible for the views of his
brother and father. A televised debate was organised between
Sarkozy and Ramadan during which the Minister pressured his
opponent to renounce his family.

The
message is clear: in the US strategy of the "clash of
civilizations," what is demanded of European Moslems is not to
adapt their religious practices to Western society, but rather to
break with the populations of the Near East. But in playing the
card of the US in order to satisfy his personal ambitions, Nicolas
Sarkozy is awakening the old demons of intolerance.

We will return in the future to a remark made by
Sarkozy at this debate, a remark that shows he follows the same
politics as the neoconservatives in the US.

In a
rambling hourlong radio interview, presidential candidate Ivan
Rybkin suggested Wednesday that for at least part of his five-day
absence in Ukraine he was hiding out from shadowy operatives -- but
at the same time he lashed out at authorities for not being able to
inform Russians about his whereabouts.

Rybkin also announced "a weeklong time-out" to decide whether
or not to scrap his candidacy in the March 14 election, which
President Vladimir Putin is widely expected to win.

Rybkin, a long-shot presidential candidate and fierce Kremlin
critic, resurfaced in Kiev on Tuesday. He flew back to Moscow,
returning to a torrent of questions about what happened since he
was last seen by his bodyguard and driver outside his Moscow home
on Thursday night.

Initially, Rybkin suggested his absence was just a much-needed
rest from the swirl of activity around his campaign, but after
arriving back in Moscow, he hinted at a more sinister
reason.

"If
I had started to say what I'm saying to you now ... it is possible
that we wouldn't be having this conversation," Rybkin said on Ekho
Moskvy radio on Wednesday.

But
when asked point-blank if he was the victim of violence or some
type of assassination attempt, he answered evasively, "I don't want
to qualify it."

Moscow police on Wednesday formally closed their investigation,
which began Sunday when Rybkin's wife, Albina, and his campaign
staff officially reported him missing.

Rybkin gave odd accounts of people that he came across in Kiev
who might have been involved in intrigues against him. He never
specified exactly what he meant, however.

"For
the last two years, I've been shadowed," he said, adding later that
when he saw the news reports about his disappearance, he suddenly
felt "very uncomfortable" and felt the need to hide out.

[...] For last February, the Russian human rights group
Memorial documented 41 "disappearances" -- cases in which people
were taken into custody and never heard from again. All told,
Memorial documented 269 disappearances in 2003, of which several
dozen have turned up as corpses.

Put
aside guerrillas being gunned down in fire fights, or women and
children caught in the regrettable crossfire; put aside those who
stepped on mines, or succumbed to war-zone diseases; put aside
kidnappings or arrests where the victims were ransomed, or freed,
or at least formally accounted for. Consider only the
disappearances (people last seen alive being led away by men with
guns and never heard from again) and these alone have been
averaging about 22 victims every month.

And
that's a conservative undercount. Memorial is only able to document
a fraction of atrocities in Chechnya -- a patch of mud and
mountains in the Caucasus still too dangerous for a United Nations
mission. Memorial guesses that for every documented atrocity, two
or three go unrecorded. That works out to an average of 66 to 88
disappearances each month. (That jibes with figures from the
Kremlin-approved Chechen administration, which last August was
already reporting 400 disappearances, plus dozens of mass graves
containing the remains of about 3,000 civilians.)

So
on top of the landmines and diseases and such, there have been 22
or 44 or 66 or maybe 88 disappearances every month, for more than a
year now, with no end in sight. In terms of tragedy and death,
that's in the ballpark of one Moscow metro bombing every
month.

But
the metro bombing was carried out, presumably, by a group of
criminals -- people we really have no control over. It was
immediately and loudly denounced by the entire world. Even the
London representative of Chechen president-in-exile Aslan Maskhadov
condemned it. The Kremlin declared a national day of mourning and
accepted condolences from governments on every
continent.

The
Chechen disappearances, by contrast, were ultimately carried out
not by unaccountable criminals, but by a democratically elected
government -- Vladimir Putin's. They occurred with little comment
or complaint, even as they were exhaustively documented in reports
to the UN and other bodies.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House hardened its defence of
President
George W. Bush's National Guard service Wednesday,
saying his critics are "trolling for trash." Yet, several members
of an Alabama unit Bush was assigned to said they couldn't recall
ever seeing him.

The
Associated Press contacted more than a dozen people who were
members of the Montgomery-based 187th Tactical Reconnaissance Group
in 1972. All were quick to point out that the unit had as many as
800 members and Bush was not yet famous.

Bush, who spent most of his service in Texas, received
permission to perform his duties in Alabama while working on a
family friend's political campaign.

"I
don't remember seeing him. That does not mean he was not here,"
said Wayne Rambo, who was a first lieutenant with the 187th. "I
don't want to cast any aspersions or to say he was or was not
there."

Bush's spokesman, Scott McClellan, said the renewed requests
for additional records show that some people "are more interested
in trolling for trash for political gain" with the presidential
election nine months away. "This is nothing but gutter
politics."

In a
new development Wednesday, a retired Texas National Guard officer
said he overheard a conversation in 1997 between then-governor
Bush's chief of staff, Joe Allbaugh, and then-adjutant general
Daniel James of the Texas Air National Guard in which he contends
those two men spoke about getting rid of any military records that
would "embarrass the governor."

Former Lt.-Col. Bill Burkett told The AP that he saw documents
from Bush's file discarded in a trash can a few days later at Camp
Mabry in Austin, Texas. Burkett described them as performance and
pay documents. He said the documents bore the header: "Bush, George
W. 1lt." - meaning first lieutenant.

James and Allbaugh deny the allegation.

"The
alleged discussion never happened," said James, who appointed by
the president in 2002 to lead the Air National Guard. "I have never
been involved in, nor would I condone any discussion or any action
to falsify any record in any circumstance for anyone."

Allbaugh, now a Washington lobbyist, told the Dallas Morning
News that Burkett's assertions were "hogwash."

Bush
said in a television interview last weekend that he would be
willing to open his entire military file and would "absolutely" be
willing to authorize the release of anything that would put the
matter to rest.

The
White House late Wednesday released a copy of a dental evaluation
Bush had in the National Guard in Alabama on Jan. 6, 1973. It
documents the president serving at Dannelly Air National Guard Base
in Alabama, McClellan said in a statement.

The
record was accompanied by a statement from Dr. Richard Tubb, the
president's current physician, who stated that he read Bush's
records, which covered a period from 1968 to 1973, and concurred
with the doctors' assertion that Bush was "fit" for
service.

McClellan said 13 pages of military pay records released
Tuesday showed that Bush fulfilled his military requirements.
McClellan stopped short of saying the White House would never
release more information to document Bush's record, especially for
the several months Bush served in Alabama.

"If
there is new information that comes to our attention we will let
you know - if it's relevant to this issue," McClellan
said.

Democrats say they want to see paperwork that would shed light
on why Bush missed an annual physical exam in May 1972. The White
House says he did not need to get one because he was not flying at
the time. The Democratic National Committee wants to see Bush's
complete Guard personnel file.

"I
don't know the status of where it is," McClellan said. "It's my
understanding the Department of Defence asked that those records be
sent here and we expect that we will receive some information as
well."

McClellan did not say whether any of it would be released.
"We'd have to see if there is any new information in that," the
spokesman said.

Democrats are delving into Bush's service, especially since
Vietnam veteran John Kerry has become the presidential
front-runner. The party chairman, Terry McAuliffe, helped resurrect
long-running questions about Bush's National Guard record when he
charged that the president had been "AWOL," or absent without
leave, during his time in Alabama.

Bush
enlisted in the Texas Air National Guard at Ellington Air Force
Base in Texas in May 1968. He spent most of his service time based
near Houston.

In
May 1972, records show Bush requested and got permission to perform
his duties in Alabama while he worked as political director on the
Senate campaign of Winton (Red) Blount, a Bush family
friend.

Democrats are focusing on a one-year period, from May 1972 to
May 1973, in which Bush was assigned in Alabama and then was back
in Texas.

Payroll records released by the White House show Bush was paid
for 25 days during that one-year period. There are gaps in service
that Democrats have questioned.

The
records, for example, show Bush was not paid for any service during
a more than five-month period in 1972, from April 17 to Oct. 27. He
was paid for two days in late October 1972, four days in
mid-November 1972 and no days in December 1972. He was paid for
additional days in 1973.

McClellan says Bush recalls serving in the Guard both in Texas
and Alabama. The pay records do not say where he served on the days
he was paid, or what he did.

Norman Rahn was a major with the 187th Supply Squadron in
1972-73 who had responsibility for out-of-state guardsmen training
with his units. He said he does not remember Bush. But he seriously
doubts whether anyone would remember Bush or any other transient
pilot who spent a total of six days to 10 days on base in a
three-month period.

"He
was not a member of our unit," Rahn said. "We didn't own
him."

Emily Curtis, who dated Bush during the time he spent in
Montgomery working on Blount's campaign, said she cannot remember
seeing him in uniform or going to Guard duty while he was in
Alabama.

But
she said: "He called me after he had left Montgomery to say he was
coming back to do his Guard duty. It was either late November or
early December (of 1972)."

To
solidify its case, the White House cites a memo written by retired
Lt.-Col. Albert Lloyd, the former personnel director of the Texas
Air National Guard.

Lloyd wrote that the records, some released for the first time,
show Bush had "satisfactory years" for the period of 1972-73 and
1973-74, proving that he "completed his military obligation in a
satisfactory manner."

Ten
months after returning home from Vietnam, a young John Kerry
strolled into the offices of The Harvard Crimson on Feb. 13, 1970
as an obscure underdog in the Democratic Congressional
primary.

The
decorated veteran, honorably discharged after a tour of duty in the
Mekong Delta, spoke in fierce terms during his daylong interview
with The Crimson’s Samuel Z. Goldhaber ’72.

But
almost 34 years later, Kerry’s remarks on American military
and intelligence operations vastly diverge from opinions expressed
by the present-day Sen. John F. Kerry, D.-Mass., the leading
candidate in the Democratic primary for president.

“I’m an
internationalist,” Kerry told The Crimson in 1970.
“I’d like to see our troops dispersed through the world
only at the directive of the United Nations.”

Kerry
said he wanted “to almost eliminate CIA activity. The CIA is
fighting its own war in Laos and nobody seems to care.”
[...]

As a
candidate for president, Kerry has said he supports the autonomy of
the U.S. military and has never called for a scale-back of CIA
operations. [...]

I am astounded by the
controversy around Janet Jackson's breast-bearing. The debate is so
heated, the complaints so vociferous, the outrage palpable.
"Indecent! Indecent!" is the cry. The government is forced by the
public outcry to raise fines against TV networks responsible for
airing indecent material.

Decency. Moral decency is the
issue. Yet we in the U.S. have multiple weekly television series
that feature (are built around) murders -- they are about murder --
they show the murders. Murder is apparently considered decent,
definitely so when compared with breast-bearing.

Peter Jennings recently showed
real killings on his newscast, forewarning viewers that "you will
see men die" as he showed
Iraqis "involved in suspicious behavior" being shot to death by
American helicopters. "Smoke 'em," was the audible order from the
commanding officer. The resulting hail of bullets tore the bodies
apart.

The objective conclusion would
seem to be that America considers murder among decent things to do
-- definitely okay to show or dramatize on TV where anyone, even
children, can see it and become accustomed to it. This case of
partial nudity vs. killing others makes it easy to see that logic
just doesn't work in the public mind, and that the popular
conception of decency makes no sense. Even more perverse, nudity is
engaged in by everyone in private by pure necessity, but killing
others is the activity of only a tiny minority. Yet nudity is
offensive and indecent when public, and depictions of murder are
not. I feel anew the shock of realization that America is truly
insane.

The
head of the UN nuclear watchdog has warned that the spread of
atomic weapons technology could lead to the world's
destruction.

[...] Al-Baradai echoed US President George Bush's call in a
speech on Wednesday for states to tighten up control of their
companies' nuclear exports to proliferators.

[...] The father of Pakistan's atom bomb, Abd al-Qadir Khan,
admitted last week that he and fellow scientists leaked nuclear
secrets.

They
are believed to have been part of a global nuclear black market
organised to help countries under embargo such as Iran, North Korea
and Libya skirt international sanctions and obtain nuclear
technology that could be used to make weapons.

The
massive illicit network has touched on at least 15 countries around
the world.

[...] In a clear jab at the US, which plans to forge ahead with
research into the so-called mini nukes, Al-Baradai said the world
must drop the idea that nuclear weapons are fine in the hands of
some countries and bad in the hands of others.

KABUL (AFP) - French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin arrived
in Kabul for a brief visit which will include talks with President
Hamid Karzai.

The
French minister met the new special United Nations representative
for Afghanistan, Jean Arnault, and was due to hold talks with
Karzai and Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah before heading
to India.

De
Villepin's visit to Kabul "comes at a time when Afghanistan has a
new constitution and is taking a crucial step: the preparation of
presidential and legislative elections," a foreign ministry
spokesman said. [...]

Tens
of thousands of Iraqis have been trapped inside their own country
since the occupation of Iraq last year because of an inoperative
immigration department.

[...] The Iraqi authorities have been unable to issue new
passports or use the passport books that survived the looting. Only
those holding valid passports issued before the invasion are able
to travel.

[...] The occupation authorities have started to issue interim
travel documents for Iraqis who want to travel abroad. The document
is valid for one trip and is accepted only in Syria and
Jordan.

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Two US soldiers were killed and a total of nine
coalition soldiers wounded following a spike in violence targeting
mainly Iraqi security forces blamed on Al-Qaeda, coalition
officials said.

A mortar
round also exploded early Thursday near where Japanese troops are
deployed in the southern Iraqi city of Samawa, but there were no
casualties, a Japanese official said. [...]

Bill
O'Reilly, the news commentator who has called his legions of fans
to boycott France and any other nation that opposed the war in
Iraq, said he now regrets his support for the conflict.

The Fox
News Channel's conservative talk-show host said he had wrongly
judged the need to invade Iraq.

"Well, my
analysis was wrong and I'm sorry," O'Reilly told ABC News,
according to a transcript of an interview released
Wednesday.

On his
show, "The O'Reilly Factor," the commentator had staunchly
supported President George W. Bush's argument for war -- that
Saddam Hussein posed a danger to the United States because he
possessed weapons of mass destruction.

And he
vociferously attacked war opponents such as France, Canada and
Germany.

"I don't
believe a word (French President) Jacques Chirac says. I think he's
a phony," he once said on his show.

But the
failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq contributed to
O'Reilly's change of heart. O'Reilly had promised viewers before
the war began in March that he would apologize if no illegal arms
were found in Iraq.

"I am
much more skeptical of the Bush administration now than I, I was at
that time," he said.

When the
interviewer asked him again about his new position, O'Reilly
responded: "Yeah, I just said it. What do you want me to do? Go
over and kiss the camera?"

Comment:How hard
would it have been for O'Reilly to have simply repeated Bush's new
excuse for Gulf Invasion II? If people like O'Reilly are turning
against Bush, it is for a reason.

Feb. 16
issue - If the CIA had a smoking gun, evidence of Saddam Hussein's
mobile weapons labs was it. The agency's first tip-off came in
2000. "The source was an eyewitness, an Iraqi chemical engineer who
had supervised one of these facilities," Secretary of State Colin
Powell told the world in his address to the U.N. Security Council
on Feb. 5, 2003. Elisa Harris, who was in charge of the WMD brief
at the National Security Council in 2000, doesn't remember the
report as being that detailed. But the tip was "worrisome," she
says. There seemed to be evidence to suggest Iraq was
reconstituting a program to both make and spread so-called
BW—biological weapons.

In 2001 a
second informant emerged: an Iraqi engineer, as Powell later
described him. The CIA hardened its view, but still hedged in its
white paper in the second half of 2001. "Baghdad continues to
pursue a BW program," the report said, expressing concern about
"the likely availability of mobile covert facilities." In 2002 two
more informants on mobile labs turned up, one of them a "major" who
defected. Now the CIA's 2002 National Intelligence Estimate took on
a tone of certainty: Baghdad "has established a large-scale... BW
production capability, which includes mobile facilities." Citing
the four informants, Powell told the U.N.: "The description our
sources gave us of the technical features required by such
facilities is highly detailed and extremely accurate." When three
suspicious tractor-trailers were found in Iraq after the war, the
CIA crowed that its intelligence had been solid.

Ten
months later, all that was once solid seems to be melting away.
Like so much else about Saddam's elusive WMD, the mystery of the
mobile labs has only deepened. "There is no consensus within our
community over whether the trailers were for [weapons] use or if
they were used for the production of hydrogen," CIA Director George
Tenet admitted in a speech last week. David Kay, until recently
head of the agency's Iraq Survey Group, says he believes the
trailers weren't used for weapons at all.

So how
did the trucks become one of the most compelling briefs in
America's case for war? The transformation of the mobile-lab intel
from speculation to fact is a case study in the enduring
fallibility of "humint," human intel-gathering—and how U.S.
agencies fail to communicate. NEWSWEEK has learned that as early as
May 2002, analysts at the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency
issued a warning about the credibility of one of the mobile-lab
informants, believed to be the Iraqi major. According to an
official who has read the still-secret warning, known as a
"fabricator notice," the document reported that he had been
"coached by Iraqi National Congress," an exile group eagerly
pushing to Pentagon hawks the urgent need to depose Saddam.
[...]

Comment:Yet
another interesting new maneuver. Now it seems that it is the
Iraqis themselves who are at fault for the invasion and the
thousands ofdeaths that resulted. It
would not be surprising if the "defectors" were coached by some
group - but our first guess would not be the Iraqi National
Congress. Perhaps one should think more along the lines of an
incredibly devious and omnipresent intelligence agency that really
doesn't like Arabs...

OSAMA bin Laden has a "terrorist navy" of 15 ships.And Scotland
Yard has warned one could sail up the Thames to attack
Parliament.

The
vessels - capable of carrying lethal chemicals or a dirty bomb -
could also ram cruise liners, oil rigs or enter ports on missions
of destruction.

A private
memo sent to police chiefs by the Met's marine unit is headlined:
Next Terror Attack Waterborne?

Ship
insurer Lloyd's of London is said to be helping MI6 and the CIA
trace vessels bought by al-Qaeda from a Greek shipping magnate with
links to bin Laden. [...]

Comment: It
appears that it was about time for the old "Osama under the bed"
routine. Bin Laden seems to be a rather resourceful guy. Even when
he is on the run or hiding in caves, he can still manage to whip up
a 15-ship Terror Navy. Meanwhile, Bushy is lounging in the White
House. Even with the most powerful military in the world and an
impressive array of technological toys, Dubya can't even come up
with a convincing piece of evidence or a good lie regarding WMD's
in Iraq.

Hamas leaders threatened a massive wave of suicide bombings
yesterday after Israeli troops killed at least 15 Palestinians and
wounded more than 40 during two gun battles in the Gaza
Strip.

Comments:Remember a couple of weeks ago when Hamas was offering a
ceasefire outside of the occupied territories? Sharon's response
was to step up the butchery of Palestinians civilians. Now this is
Hamas's response.

JERUSALEM, Feb 11 (CSM) -
Israeli human rights lawyers have fired off the first salvoes of a
battle to thwart the construction of Israel's separation barrier
deep inside the occupied West Bank.

The
project "cannot be carried out inside an occupied territory without
violating international law," attorney Michael Sfard told Israel's
Supreme Court this week during a two-hour opening
session.

It
came just two weeks before the International Court of Justice in
The Hague is due to deliberate the barrier's legality at the behest
of the United Nations. Israel says the network of fences and walls
is critical to security and is the only way to put an end to
relentless suicide bombings on buses, in malls, and in cafes by
Palestinians who have infiltrated Israeli towns over the past three
years.

The
Israeli court has a long history of legitimizing policies of
deporting Palestinians and demolishing their homes, although legal
experts say that in recent years international law has played a
larger role in its decisionmaking. This time it is under
unprecedented international scrutiny because of the case in The
Hague. [...]

An
Israeli soldier has been charged with the manslaughter of a British
activist in the Gaza Strip.

Manchester Metropolitan
University student Tom Hurndall, 22, died in a London hospital on
January 13 after spending nine months in a coma.

He was
shot in the head while in southern Gaza with the International
Solidarity Movement, a pro-Palestinian group whose activists
volunteer to serve as buffers between Israeli soldiers and
Palestinians. [...]

ROME
- The United Nations put the world on notice Wednesday that two
nations, Haiti and Lesotho, could run critically short of food if
their situations don't soon change.

[...] Lesotho, which is surrounded by South Africa, lies at the
heart of what aid workers describe as an unprecedented regional
disaster. Harvests have been meager in recent years because of the
drought and severe insect infestations.

The
warnings come as the World Food Programme is already dealing with
other severe food shortages in North Korea, Ethiopia and Chad, as
well as earthquake-devastated Bam, Iran.

Jamal Khatib will be able to question the interrogators at a
closed court session in March.

Last
fall, Israel charged Akkal with conspiracy to commit murder and
with illegal military training after the former University of
Windsor student confessed to being a member of the Hamas Islamic
Resistance Movement.

Khatib said the confession was given under duress and that
unscrupulous methods were used to elicit it.

"We
claim that they got the confession under duress. We need to hear
all the interrogators that interrogated him and our claim that they
used physical force and that they threatened to do harm to his
brothers in Canada and Germany," said Khatib, who claims Akkal was
only detained because some members of his extended family in Gaza
belong to Hamas.

JERUSALEM - If the Palestinians, Israelis and Jordanians sign a
peace agreement, they should be offered membership in the European
Union, where the three countries could form a trading partnership,
says former Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres.

TORONTO - An award-winning writer says police seized her latest
manuscript in a search that led to unrelated criminal charges
against her common-law husband

Marsha Boulton says a novel she worked on for three years was
taken last summer when Ontario Provincial Police searched the home
she shares with crime writer Stephen Williams. Williams was
subsequently charged with violating publication bans on materials
related to the case of sex killers Paul Bernardo and Karla
Homolka.

[...] She says her latest work, a historical novel, has nothing
to do with the Bernardo/Homolka case, and was stored on her own
computer in the farmhouse she shares with Williams.

"My
office is entirely separate," she said. "It's on the second storey,
while Stephen Williams's office is on the first floor. My office is
quite different."

Nonetheless, Boulton says investigators took the computer and
backup discs that held her manuscript.

An
OPP spokesman confirmed Wednesday that investigators still have the
computer. He said its seizure was authorized by a court
order.

NEW
DELHI: Is the ground slipping from under our feet? With India
mining its groundwater reserves, red spots are beginning to show on
the radar. In fact, warn experts, it could soon be time to ring the
alarm bell.

Nobody knows the full scale of the problem; it just hasn't been
studied systematically. But thirsty Indians are guzzling
groundwater reserves — 85 per cent of rural supply and more
than 50 per cent of feel-good India's urban and industrial supply
is mined. In some areas, too much water has been pumped
out.

Feb.
10, 2004 — Marvin Gaye wailed in the '60s hit "Heard it
through the Grapevine" that we're supposed to believe just half of
what we see.

But
a new collaborative study involving a biomedical engineer at
Washington University in St. Louis and neurobiologists at the
University of Pittsburgh shows that sometimes you can't believe
anything that you see. More importantly, the researchers have
identified areas of the brain where what we're actually doing
(reality) and what we think we're doing (illusion, or perception)
are processed. [...]

NASHVILLE, Tenn. –
When we experience an illusion, we usually have the impression we
have been fooled, or that our minds are playing tricks on us. New
research published in the Oct. 31 issue of the journal Science
indicates our perceptions of these illusions are no hoax, but the
result of how the brain is organized to process the information it
receives from our senses. [...]

Comment:
Reality and illusion are continual topics at this site. Determining
what is real or rational, discerning between subjective or
objective. Realizing that we can only have relative truth, but with
an open and skeptical mind we can take continual steps toward
perceiving what is, rather than what we are told, or what we
"think" should be. A journey, a quest that few even will want to
begin, even if they could imagine such an option exists. Too
dangerous, too difficult and entirely too unsettling, particularly
when we realize that we cannot entirely trust our perceptions. The
Signs page is really not for those who have it all figured out, or
want easy answers. In the spirit of attempting to figure just what
exactly going on this planet lets take a look at the anomalous news
...

Strange things have been
happening lately. Global warming is about to cause a massive new
Ice Age, George Bush is looking more and more like a one-term
president and al Qaeda says it now has nuclear
capability.

While we have all the money
in the world to spend on the military and on security, the United
States can’t spend one dime to implement the Kyoto protocols,
which would at least give us a chance at stemming the upcoming
disasters.

At
the same time, UFOs are being sighted at all-time levels, our Mars
rovers keep sending back strange images and alien abductions appear
to be on the rise as well.

It
may well be time to break out the tinfoil hats and start stocking
up on food and water, as the Apocalypse appears to be
nigh.

In
Canada, the environmental minister is warning that global warming
is a bigger long-term threat than terrorism because climate changes
will cause the relocation of millions of people and leave North
American agriculture in ruins.

“Terrorism is
unlikely to give us the strong possibility of 500 million
refugees,” said the minister, David Anderson. “Climate
change is likely to give us that if it goes
unchecked.”

While we have all the money
in the world to spend on the military and on security, the United
States can’t spend one dime to implement the Kyoto protocols,
which would at least give us a chance at stemming the upcoming
disasters.

It’s a bizarre time
to be alive. While every generation likes to boast that the end is
near, in this case the predictions may actually be true. We may
just be a year or two away from a near-total economic collapse in
America, resulting in massive rioting in our cities.

And
the reason the UFOs appear to be showing up in record numbers is
because aliens apparently like to watch the action, in the same way
I used to watch the goings-on in my ant farm.

My
eyes have been opened to all of these possibilities thanks to the
great Art Bell, the radio talk-show host who explores these things
on Saturday and Sunday nights.

In
fact, the other night, I called into his show after a very bizarre
event happened in my own life.

I’d come home from
work on a Monday feeling dog-tired. I got home, took a shower,
shaved, gave food and water to my cats and laid down for a nap
around 5:30 p.m. I slept for what felt like hours, having very
vivid dreams.

When
I woke up, most of the cats’ food and water had been
consumed. When I walked into the bathroom, I had the beginning of a
5 o’clock shadow. I felt totally refreshed from my
nap.

But
when I looked down at my watch, it was only 6:30 p.m. Obviously,
there’d been some sort of time manipulation at
work.

So
when I asked Bell about my situation, he told me that I’d
been the victim of what is called a “time slip.” It
apparently happens pretty frequently and its cause is unknown. Some
have said that it is connected with the abduction phenomena, while
others see it as only a time-space anomaly.

Either way, it was bizarre.
[...]

Now,
do I really believe in alien abductions, UFOs and the forthcoming
apocalypse? Not necessarily. What I do know is that there are many
things which science cannot adequately explain and which the U.S.
government has been covering up for decades.

If
there are no UFOs, then why haven’t the records from the 1947
Roswell crash ever been released? Why have a succession of
presidential candidates promised to open up all the UFO-related
files and then reneged?

I
remember enough from my physics class that any extraterrestrial
pilot would have to be traveling at faster than light speed to even
come close to bridging the considerable distance between earth and
any other life-bearing entity.

The
nearest star, Alpha Centauri, is about four light years away from
us. That’s approximately 24 trillion miles. It would take
tens of thousands of years for us to get there if we traveled at
the fastest rate possible today. So the possibility of these
abductions all being real seems small.

But,
as I said above, these are bizarre times. I’m not ready to
completely discount anything in this realm.

There are individuals
who’ve claimed to be the victims of alien implants. Doctors
have removed objects from them that appear to be comprised of
materials previously unknown to us.

If
there are indeed extraterrestrials roaming around our planet, I
wouldn’t be so sure their intentions are good. If
they’ve expended all this effort to reach us, I’m
relatively sure that they want something more than just to observe
us.

And,
according to some who’ve studied the issue, a very high
percentage of humans today are actually a hybrid of human and
alien. Maybe the level is as high as 40 percent.

Who
am I to say none of this is true? While it’s pretty
ridiculous on its face to believe in any of this, I’m keeping
an open mind.

And
I’m keeping my tinfoil hat at the ready.

Comment: A
good article, although we would be hesitant to trust much of what
comes from Art Bell's shows. It appears that very little
discernment goes on in determining who gets air time and who
doesn't. Although, it is really up to each individual to use their
own critical skills and not trust something just because it comes
from a position of authority. The author tentatively makes an
excellent point that very likely all these upheavals are connected:
political, social, dimensional, Fortean...

On
January 14, Lindsay [...] noticed something odd. A security camera
trained on a couple of the plant's boiler stacks happened to
capture an object moving across the sky .

"I
saw a long, black object, and I could see flames starting at its
nose and going up both sides of it," Lindsay tells the Strip.
Lindsay wasn't sure what he was seeing, so the 52-year-old did what
he figured was the responsible thing -- he made a videotape of the
flight and alerted the media .

He
had better luck with KMBC Channel 9 , which aired Lindsay's tape
and called NORAD (the North American Aerospace Defense Command),
only to find that the U.S. military claimed not to know anything
about a re-entering piece of space junk over Kansas City. The ABC
station also consulted an astronomer, who said the object
was probably a large meteor. [...]

Comment: A
large flaming meteor is more interesting than a UFO, particularly
since those
sightings have greatly increased. UFO reports
still beat out fireball reports in terms of quantity.

WINNIPEG, Manitoba --
Vancouver and Toronto topped the list of Canadian cities with
sightings of unidentified flying objects, according to an annual
report.

According to the 2003
Canadian UFO Survey released Tuesday by Ufology Research of
Manitoba, there were 673 UFO sightings across Canada last year, 39
percent more than in 2002. Of the sightings reported last year, 41
were in Vancouver and 34 in Toronto.

"It's still puzzling why
we're seeing an increase," survey author Chris Rutkowski said. "It
could be that more people are willing to admit they've seen a UFO
because they see other people admitting it. The ridicule barrier is
almost completely eliminated."

Of
the total sightings, 17 percent remain unexplained.

"We
have enough information to judge that the other objects were a star
or an aircraft," Rutkowski said.

John
Stewart doesn't believe in aliens but he would like an explanation
for the saucer-like object he saw in the sky last summer. The Stony
Mountain resident, along with his wife and 11-year-old son,
reported seeing the unidentified flying object on Aug. 23 while
driving into Winnipeg.

"It
was the freakiest thing I've ever seen in my life," said Stewart,
who works for a local recording company. "It was absolutely amazing
to see and the more I think about it, the more I wish I could see
it again."

Stewart's sighting was one
of 25 reported in the province last year, according to the 2003
Canadian UFO Survey. The survey was released yesterday by an
independent research group led by Winnipegger Chris
Rutkowski.

Stewart said the saucer
caught his eye while driving past a farmer's field on Highway 7
about 6:45 p.m. that day. He initially assumed it was a small
airplane or helicopter, hovering 30 to 40 metres above the ground,
but he realized it was much more than that after the object flew
over the highway median and turned sideways as it passed cars at
speeds of up to 140 km/h.

"Me
and my wife looked at each other and said 'What the hell is that?'
" Stewart recalled yesterday. "It wasn't aerodynamic at all, so it
shouldn't have been able to have been flying, let alone flying
while going that fast."

The
object was pewter in colour and had a diameter of about three
metres, he said, with black and symmetrical, ball-like windows
along the side. After it flew over Stewart's truck, the family lost
sight of the UFO only 90 seconds after first spotting
it.

"I
have no idea what it was," he said. "If I believed in aliens I'd
have thought it was a probe of some sort but I don't know about
that."

DRAWINGS SIMILAR

At
Rutkowski's urging, all three family members drew a picture of what
they saw. All three drawings were strikingly similar, said
Stewart.

He
said he wouldn't have come forward if he had spotted the object
while alone, saying there is a stigma attached to people who report
such sightings. Even his friends were skeptical when he told them
about it.

"Nobody believed me until
my wife said she saw it, too," he said. "So they now believe we saw
something."

Stewart's sighting was one
of 115 in Canada last year that have no apparent explanation, said
Rutkowski. [...]

MEMBERS of a Gravesend
family say they have been forced to flee their home after a ghostly
apparition turned rooms cold and burned candles black.

Even
a blessing from a vicar - called in by Gravesham Council - has
failed to deter the spirit from spooking the family.
Now Lisa Bruce is concerned for her 24-year-old sister and
six-year-old niece after the unexplained happenings at their flat
in St Patrick’s Gardens, Gravesend.

Lisa, 30, of nearby Raphael
Road, said: “Since just after Christmas there has been some
sort of poltergeist or presence in her flat.”

The
ghostly goings-on have included:

*
Shadows in the hallway
* Rooms suddenly turning from hot to cold
* A feeling someone else is in the room

Most
recently the letter M appeared scratched on a toy blackboard and
patterns have been appearing in sheets after beds have been
made.

Even
the family’s usually confident Staffordshire bull terrier
Rusty is reluctant to go into the flat.

Gravesham Borough Council
brought in a ghostbusting vicar to bless the council flat after a
visit from staff last week.

A
Gravesham council spokesman said: “A council officer visited
the property and made a full assessment, noting the tenant’s
queries. These were followed up on return to the council, but we
could not find any realistic conclusion.

“As this was the case
we made enquiries on behalf of the tenant with St Aidan’s
Church to see if they could offer any
suggestions.”

Vicar Peter Rich from St
Aidan’s visited to bless the flat and placed candles and
crosses in some of the rooms.
He said: “The council did contact me and we are trying to do
what we can to help the family. You do get this sort of situation
happen from time to time.”

But
it was when the candles given to the family began to burn black,
with black smoke plumes and the wicks changing colour, that the
family decided enough was enough.

Lisa’s sister, who
asked not to be identified, took the decision to move her and her
daughter out of the flat. They are now sleeping on the floor in her
disabled mother’s bungalow.

Gravesham council has said
it had no plans to move the family into temporary accommodation.
But Lisa said: “We never believed in any of this but until it
happens to you, you don’t know. My sister loves her flat and
would like to return when whatever it is goes away, but my sister
and my niece can’t sleep on the floor
forever.”

Local medium Linda Rowden
Allen said: “It is hard to speculate without knowing the
family. They could move back in and ignore it or they could try and
find out what or who it might be.

[...] An indigenous
community in Yucatan has dedicated the last few days to try to hunt
at night with shotguns the "huay keken" (diabolical depredator in
Maya) which -according to their story- has cut into pieces their
poultry, with the disbelief of the authorities. Abrisel Ek Baas,
farmer and mother, slept in her house of metal roof when she heard
noises on the back of her house. "The birds went wild. I was
scared. It sounded like something big that walked on two feet", she
says. The next morning, Abrisel found the birds, turkeys and
chicken, destroyed and bitten.

[...] People say that the
"huay keken" is a huge animal with legs of a horse, gray hairy
body, female body from the waist up and makes a noise with a very
high tone. From one of the communities, Chicxlub, the local sheriff
Jorge Luis Aguilar said that every night the residents guard with
weapons, and one of them described the beast as "a dog two meter
high, with red eyes, that spits fire".

[...] The state secretary
of Protection and Transit, Javier Medina Torre, urged people to
remain calm because "while the beast doesn't exist, the hunting
could cause someone getting shot and that would become a serious
action". However, the rumour is still growing.[...]

While the presence of evil
entities advances in Yucatan and motivates an atmosphere of terror
among residents, the State Department of Protection and Transit [of
Yucatan] warned this Wednesday that it will not allow and will even
punish people who use weapons on their attempt to hunt these
allegedly supernatural beings.

The
reason is that for a second consecutive dawn the residentes of
Texan Palomeque, in the municipality of Hunucma, did not sleep and
armed themselves with the intention to kill a supposedly female
werewolf, that in the last few days has created panic among the
members of that and other communities in Yucatan, besides having
destroyed hundreds of poultry and other domestic animals.
[...]

A
PAIR of psychic investigators looking at the healing properties of
an ancient stone circle claim it has made them seriously
ill.

Brian Perinton and
mother-of-two Claire Williams visited Carn Llechart stone circle in
the Swansea Valley three months ago. They planned to investigate
the healing properties and positive energy which standing in the
centre of circle, said to have been constructed in around 2,000BC,
was reputed to give to people.

Mr
Perinton said yesterday, "I have never seen anything like it.
Claire was bodily thrown from the centre of the circle by some kind
of force. I felt it too. It was like being punched in the
stomach.

"Since our visit we
suffered severe headaches, stomach problems, lethargy and general
illness. It was almost as if our energy was completely sapped by
whatever was in the centre of those stones.

"We
are starting to recover now but we want to find out if anyone else
has had similar experiences. We would love to speak to them to find
out if the illnesses and general feeling of weakness are the
same.

"Then we can start some
kind of scientific investigation into what could be causing
this."

No
one is entirely certain why the stone circles were created but they
are a Celtic phenomenon. Archaeologists believe they could be giant
calendars with stone shadows tracing the alignment of the moon and
sun. [...]

Comment: Yep, those
"howling savages" were so stupid that they dragged all those stones
around just to have a calendar. If you believe that, we have
ancient Atlantean relics to sell you.

One of the upheavals
occurring in our society is the dominance of the
psychopath and most people's ignorance of this strange
phenomenon leaving them vulnerable. Most psychopaths are smart
enough to not get caught, and to stick to the letter of the law.
Most are not serial killers, like the US president. They exact
their toll on society in a myriad of other ways, such as becoming
corporate CEOs.

Two
Hong Kong girls were allegedly killed and then raped as part of a
black magic ritual to create ghosts to torment their killer's wife,
a news report said on Wednesday.

The
girls, aged one and 11, were allegedly snatched within two weeks of
each other by father-of-three Duong Vinh Cuong after his wife
walked out on him, prosecutors told Hong Kong's High Court on
Tuesday.

Duong, who claimed to have
learned black magic in Thailand, apparently later admitted to
police that he killed the girls then raped them as part of an
occult ritual to make them related to him by blood, the court
heard. [...]

THE
dismembered corpse of a pervert teacher was found in a shallow
grave yesterday.Disgraced Alan Wilson's body was discovered in a
garden in Edinburgh's posh Merchiston area. [...]

Wilson, 52, was the former
principal history teacher at James Gillespie's School in the
city.

He
was jailed for 18 months in May 2000 on eight counts of sex abuse
against teenage pupils over a five-year period. He plied his
victims with drink before abusing them. [...]

Yesterday, his
neighbours in the posh block refused to discuss Wilson, saying they
had 'held a meeting' and decided not to
comment.

Wilson had become
awell-respected school figure in his 20-year career, even advising
education authorities about teaching matters.
[...]

Wilson had always been
fascinated with death, gore and grisly murder.

Dressed in black, hooded
cloaks, he would teach his tour guides to recount macabre tales of
death and torture to tourists in candlelit underground vaults,
including the once plague-ridden street of Mary King's
Close.

Together with his then
friend and colleague, Des Brogan, he co-wrote a book, Ghostly Tales
and Sinister Stories of Old Edinburgh.

It
revels in the tales of dismembered bodies that the guides still
tell nightly.

A
former guide who worked for Wilson, who did not wish to be named,
said: 'He loved all those gruesome tales of the grisly side to old
Edinburgh and, in particular,stomach-churning murders. The book he
wrote is dripping with guts and gore.

'He
would make sure all the stories we told were full of all the grisly
details too blood, pain and torture.

'There are all the famous
tales like the one of the infamous bodysnatchers Burke and
Hare.

'But
after Wilson was sent to prison, he cut all ties with the company
and I never knew what happened to him.

'So
it seems incredible that he ended up as murdered like that, as
though he were in one of his very own stories.

'It
sounds horrible to say, but I suppose in years to come people will
be telling tales of how he was killed.'

TAIPEI
(Reuters) - Relatives of a kidnap victim in Taiwan struck a passing
motorcyclist with more than $600,000 in cash when they tossed the
ransom money to the kidnappers from a highway overpass.

The T$20
million (317,000 pounds) ransom, packed into two nylon bags, landed
on 57-year-old Lu Fang-nan when he rode under the overpass just as
a relative of the victim delivered the money according to
kidnappers' instructions, local media said on Thursday.

"What
does this have to do with me? Why did I get hit? I'm certainly
unlucky enough," the mass-circulation United Daily News quoted Lu
as saying.

Lu, who
later sought medical attention for swelling and bruising of his
left leg, said he rode off not realising he had been toppled off
his motorcycle by a small fortune.

Newspapers said police were
closing in on several suspects in the kidnapping of an electronic
components merchant, who was returned unharmed to his
family.

Remember, we need your help to collect
information on what is going on in your part of the
world!